I've read all of Tarryn Fisher's books and she always knows how to capture you.I thought this book was very gripping and I could not put it down. From the first chapter until the last I was engrossed; this story took me on a roller coaster of emotions. A physiological thriller of the best kind.

The start of this book was intriguing and held my attention as the confusion in the storyline set in I wasn't sure where the book would end up.

I didn't like the ending and at the end I felt like I had wasted my time reading it.

I know a lot people liked this and gave it rave reviews, but sadly I'm not one of them.

I really tried (I pushed myself to read atleast 40% of it!) but it just didn't do it for me! I found Thursday really annoying and I found it hard to believe that someone would willingly put themselves in the position she puts herself in. Her obsessive, stalkerish behaviour didn't help either.

Anyway, it's a no for me and I personally wouldn't recommend it to others.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

Wow, what a gripping read! I had heard great things about this author so couldn't wait to dive into this one. I can see why!
I couldn't put this book down, it was gripping and twisty and a few dark bits in between! Loved it.

‘The Wives’ is the latest book by Tarryn Fisher.

You’ve never met the other wives. None of you know each other, you see your husband only one day a week. Thursday. But you don’t care, you love him that much. Or at least that’s what you’ve told yourself. And then, one day it all changes. You thought you were fine with this, with only having a fraction of a husband. But you can’t help yourself, you start to dig. You begin tracking them down, the other days… Who is Monday and why does she have bruises on her arms? Is she being abused? By who? Her husband? Your husband? What else is he keeping from you? And who is he, really?

I spent one evening with my head absorbed with this book. It’s an unsettling, psychological story that throughly gripped my attention.

The story is seen through the narrative of Thursday who’s married to Seth. Seth is a polygamist and along with Tuesday, has two other wives. They have never met each other but Thursday has a curiosity to find out who the women are that he is married to. Thursday then begins on a slippery journey of delving into social media and befriending whilst finding out that Seth isn’t quite the charmer that he makes himself out to be.

This book is one twisted story. Thursday is an interesting narrative, she’s complex and is content to have one night a week with her husband whilst the other wives have his attention. But as the story progresses, we see a different side to her and the perfect relationship, as Thursday begins to question everything that Seth has told her. He’s the perfect man, charming, successful with a dysfunctional childhood that makes up for his misdemeanours. Thursday as also a bit of an unreliable narrator and sometimes it was challenging to see what was fact and what was fiction.

The story is set in Seattle and Thursday is a nurse and for me, the story was written like a darker version of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. It was a sexy and gripping story about love, obsession that really made for compulsive reading. Atmospheric from the first page, ‘The Wives’ is fantastic and thrilling page turner. Fast paced with drama and suspense throughout, the story is an emotional and psychological thriller that will keep the reader hooked throughout.

You can buy ‘The Wives’ from Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops

Thursday is the second wife of polygamist Seth. Her life starts to unravel as she finds out what Seth’s other wives look like and try’s to follow them and find out more about their time spent with her husband. After going into hospital in the psychiatric ward Thursday starts to get confused about what is real and what are the people in her life trying to make her think is real. This is quite a read as you follow Thursday trying to unravel all the twists and turns she discovers along the way.

I have never read this author before, but I was instantly captivated by her writing style; her building of a scene with startling clarity and her use of words is extraordinary!
I found this book very absorbing, as it went on I began to find it more and more chilling, the last couple of chapters made my jaw drop. A really well written book, unpredictable and different to any psychological thriller Ive read before, I look forward to reading more from this author. I recommend this book highly.
Thank you to Netgalley and HQ Harper Collins for the ARC and the opportunity to review.

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher is a very fast-paced domestic thriller. Expect many plot twists and disturbing revelations.

Synopsis:

Thursday is married to Seth. But he has two other wives, that he sees during the week. Thursday gets to see Seth on Thursday, while the other wives each have a day for themselves as well. The main rule is - she is not supposed to know the other wives, nor contact them.

When Thursday finds the name of his newest wife, Hannah, in Seth’s pocket, she does what every woman would - looks her up. She meets up with Hannah under a false name, trying to find out more about her and the husband that they share. But Hannah is not only pregnant with Seth’s baby; she also has bruises on her body. Is Seth capable of that? The Seth she is married to?

Realising she might not know who Seth really is, Thursday is on a mission to find out as much as possible about him and the other two wives, before he realises something’s up. With many twists and turns, Thursday realises things are not as they seem. At all.

My Thoughts:

The first half of the book gives us the idea of the situation. From Thursday’s point of view, we get a glimpse of a very rare situation. How a woman feels when she is sharing a man with other women. The challenges and worries this entails. The constant battle to be better than the others, even though she doesn’t know them. The constant curiosity to know how they treat him, whether they are more beautiful than her, whether they can give him more than she can. The battle with herself, on why isn’t she enough. Why does he need other women to be happy? The loss of her baby, that changed everything.

The second half of the book is filled with plot twists, and I cannot say much more without revealing anything. It involves finding out the truth, violence, mental health hospital and many lies told by many people. I was very disappointed with the ending, and I will have to explain why below.

SPOILER ALERT - The below paragraph contains spoilers.

During the book, we kept having more and more plot twists. The story started becoming more and more twisted and tricky to unravel. And then, a few chapters before the end, the author explains this as one of Thursday’s delusions. Seth divorced her when they lost the baby, but she could never move on and started believing this delusion that he has multiple wives. However, there are many inconsistencies to this, and they are all left for us to believe they are part of Thursday’s delusions. Also, there are facts that don’t correspond. He still came to see her every Thursday (which was explained as cheating). Furthermore. he stole money from her bank account. He brewed some weird tea for her before she lost her baby. Somehow, I keep thinking that the plot became too twisted for the author as well, and she just decided to blame it all on Thursday’s delusions.

SPOILER FINISHED.

I am still unsure on how I feel about this book. Perhaps I would’ve been more satisfied if the explanation and the ending were different. The very last scene was shocking, and completely out of character. I cannot understand why this is how the book ended and I am very conflicted. This type of plot seems very similar to other books I have read before, and I don’t find it unique. However, I read this book in a day and it did intrigue me to find out more. Once you start reading, you cannot put this book down. But once you get to the ending, there is the conflict of whether it was a good ending of such a twisty book.

I definitely recommend it, if you love this genre. It will keep you on your toes. It also might make you think whether your husband has other wives as well. Just kidding :)

I must admit that when I started to read 'The Wives' I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I wasn't sure whether or not it would be a thriller or chick lit. So I started to read the book with an open mind. Having just finished reading 'The Wives', all I can say is 'WOW'. I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'The Wives' but more about that in a bit.
It didn't take me long to get into this story. In fact by the time that I got to the end of the first page of the book, I knew I wasn't going to be able to put the book to one side for very long. I was intrigued by the story, by the characters and I had to know what happened to the husband. The pages turned increasingly quickly as my desperation to find out what happened just grew and grew. I wasn't able to read the book over the course of a single day because boring things like life got in the way but I was able to read it in just under 72 hours, which is still good going for me.
'The Wives' is really well written. The author certainly knows how to grab your attention from the start and draw you into the story. Tarryn has certainly created some interesting characters. I can't say that I warmed to any of them and as for Seth, well the least said about him the better. For me, 'The Wives' was perfectly paced. The story hit the ground running and maintained the fairly fast pace throughout. I had a feeling that I knew how the story was going to conclude but I couldn't have been more wrong if I had tried! I was so convinced by Tarryn's writing that I felt as though I was part of the story myself and I even tried to interact with the book- by that I mean that I would occasionally talk to the characters as if they could hear me.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'The Wives' and I would recommend it to other readers. It's one hell of a twisty psychological thriller. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

The protagonist in this book is Thursday (yes, it is her name), and the whole story is told from her perspective. I was very mesmerized with Thursday, she is a very strange character, and her personality made me annoyed sometimes, with all her excuses and willingness to please a man she is obsessed with. I loved her, but she drove me mad at the same time, AND I LOVED IT! 😀 I really liked the choice of the characters in this book, they all are very different and interesting personalities.

The narrative of this novel is unbelievably well thought through and delivered. It had everything I like in the good psychological thriller, it is extremely deceptive and mind-blowing with all the twists and turns, amazingly built up suspense and its constantly changing events, that left me pleasantly confused and even more determined to find out “What the hell is going on here?” (that was the question I was asking myself over and over again 🙂 ). The topics discussed in this book were mental health issues, miscarriages, polygamy, men pleasing behaviour, obsession, social seclusion, and many more.

I loved the writing style of this book, the author is a master of deception and I loved everything about this book, from the language used, to the overall delivery of this story. The chapters are pretty short, and this book is so fast-paced, the pages just flew by for me. I loved the ending of this book too, I think it rounded the story brilliantly.

So, to conclude, it is an amazing psychological thriller, filled with beautifully crafted, complex characters, and the narrative that is filled with illusion, amazing twists and constant suspense. I really loved the writing style, and the other books by this author are already on my wish list. 🙂 I would strongly recommend this book to all thriller lovers because Tarryn Fisher is a very pleasant discovery for me, and she has bagged herself a new fan here.

I really enjoyed Fisher’s book, which was my first by her. The Wives is a suspenseful and page turning thriller full of suspicion and intrigue. The whole novel is told from Thursday’s perspective, telling us about her polygamist husband and his other wives. It took me a while to be okay with this concept! It constantly had me guessing and just when I thought I had it figured out something would happen to change my mind!
All in all I think I guessed one tiny, miniscule part of it but I’m taking that as a win! The book itself was so easy to read and it is nice and short at under 300 pages, definitely a perfect holiday read and one to keep your attention. I think there is a lot of pressure these days with thrillers to try and fit twists in so I was glad this one rolled along smoothly and didnt feel forced.
As a character, Thursday was a bit of an oddity for me, I’m quite strong-willed and independent (thanks Mum) so when I read a character who is completely besotted by a man like this I’m always a little disjointed in my connection but I could see where her feelings had come from and it made me really cheer for her when she started investigating her husband and his other wives. I really enjoyed thinking about how everything was going to tie together. If you like a good twisty thriller, pick this one up!

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher is a 4 star read.
Thursday is determined to be the perfect wife, she shares her husband Seth with his two other wives, Monday and Tuesday named after the days of the week he spends with them, but Thursday’s curiosity gets the better of her after she finds a receipt in Seth’s pocket and she starts to dig into his life away from her.
This was a great book, the storyline had me hooked from the start.
I voluntarily reviewed a gifted copy of this book through Netgalley.

Loved the book but it is very difficult to give a review without giving away the storylines.
It is a story of love betrayal and obsession
It grips you from the very first page and what you think is happening is not the reality
Brilliant keeps you on the edge of your seat to the very last page

When I chose to read The Wives, I set myself a challenge. Take the first line of the blurb ‘imagine your husband has two other wives’ My mind went blank the first time I read it. I couldn’t imagine it, unless stuck with an unfaithful husband in the usual way affairs usually go. But there is no affair here. Imagine agreeing to voluntarily share your husband with two other women. No, no, no, no, no. That was the point that had me going ‘what would make a woman say yes to such an arrangement?’ There lay the issue for me. My interest was picked. Could an author make this authentic and real enough for me to accept the idea and connect in any way with the characters?

Tarryn Fisher explains through Thursday, wife #2, how their life works. Seth’s wives are referred to as Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. He begins his week with wife #3, young and pregnant. Wife #1 shares his Tuesdays, and then he travels to Thursday. The perfect calendar for the hubby, and so far, no wife has complained!

When the novel opens, we take a good look at Thursday’s life. One day a week, she gets to live the life she wants. The rest of the time, she is a nurse, a friend, but her marital situation has built walls between her and the world. Who could understand why she agreed to share Seth? Her loneliness is palpable, so is her love for the guy. Tarryn Fisher really paints her main character in such a way that I found myself – if not understanding – at least admitting her reasons were valid. They say love make people crazy. Well, The Wives is a good example of how far a woman would go for the man she loves.

At least until she gets a glimpse of his other lives. Careless Seth leaves a note in one of his pockets. Typical! If previously, Thursday managed with nonchalantly asking a few questions here and there about the others, this tiny bit of paper is a tangible proof of his different lives and she soon wants to know more.

I went through different emotions while reading The Wives. I was outraged at Seth’s perfect life. I was furious with the wives for allowing a man to be their sun, only revolving around him in a dance he was leading. Then I got curious. I enjoyed Thursday’s search for answers. What did the other wives bring to Seth? How different were they? How different could Seth be with them? It didn’t take much for Thursday’s happy façade to crumble, but the author did a great job at not making it too quick and evident. She built a case against Seth, throwing hints of his other lives at Thursday until the very compartmentalized days blew up and so did Thursday’s trust in Seth…

The Wives was completely different than what I was expecting. I could have said it took a turn and went to explore a part I hadn’t thought of, but I am not sure it even began where I thought it would! It was definitely a surprising read. I was expecting a war of wives, but I read about a war of love and loss. Tarryn Fisher explored sensitive subjects with tact and authenticity, all the while fuelling my hatred for a man who had been taking advantage of women for too long… But the road was not as straight as it seemed and Thursday happened to be even more complex than I had first believed.

Some twists and the ending left me somewhat confused, leaving a taste of over-the-top in my mouth, but the overall read was an enjoyable experience.

I did enjoy this book even though it was a tad predictable, it’s hard to give an honest opinion without giving anything away! Definitely worth a read but not totally enthralled by it.

2/5

The Wives just didn't hit the mark for me. I liked the concept and I think it had potential, but it just wasn't executed very well in my opinion. It used a trope that is currently very popular and overused in thrillers, which meant it was predictable from the outset. It definitely got more fast-paced towards the end, but that didn't necessarily work in its favour as there were so many confusing plot twists.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:

- Adultery
- Miscarriage (forced)
- Molestation/Sexual Assault
- Domestic Abuse
- Physical and Mental Abuse
- Mental Health Hospitalisation/Psychosis
- Drugging

Thursday is determined to be the perfect wife to her husband Seth. She always makes sure she is perfectly made up with a delicious meal on the table for his return home, ready and willing to be at his beck and call.....after all they only get one sacred day a week together as Thursday isn't Seth's only wife.

Having to share her husband with two other mysterious women, it's no wonder Thursday often finds herself jealously wondering about who Seth spends the rest of his his time with. With information about the other wives scare, Thursday can't believe her luck when she finds a clue in the pocket of Seth's trousers and despite knowing she shouldn't her curiosity gets the better of her and before she knows it she's in too deep. But what Thursday discovers makes her question everything; does she know her husband at all? 

OH MY WORD! I'm not sure any review I produce will do justice to this book - I thoroughly enjoyed it! The Wives is a fast-paced, unpredictable thriller that had me hooked from the very first page. I found myself drawn straight into the midst of this polygamist relationship set up which intrigued and terrified me in equal measure thanks to the atmospheric writing style Fisher uses throughout, I literally felt on edge the whole time! 

Now I've used the analogy of being on a roller coaster ride to describe books before, but this book is the true definition of an edge of the seat, white knuckle ride. The plot line for this story flips, twists and turns so many times I lost count - each time I thought I'd worked out what was going on and how things were going to play out another crazy spanner was thrown into the works changing everything. This book kept me guessing every step of the way and I genuinely didn't foresee it's finale, which is quite a rare occurrence for me as I'm terrible for predicting how stories will end then being disappointed!

The synopsis for The Wives promised an unusual, mystery filled story line and it's execution was so much more than I anticipated. This has to be one of my favourite books of the year to date and I can't wait to check out some of Tarryn Fisher's backlisted books as I absolutely adored her characters and writing style. If you are looking for a thriller with a unique, intriguing story line to captivate your imagination then this book is for you!

Thursday is living polygamous life. Her husband has two other women. They share him amicably it appears but Thursday is starting to get curious about the other wives. She begins to investigate them and soon her own life starts to unravel. Is Seth really the husband she thinks he is and what about the wives.

This was a good read in a similar vein to Girl on the train. The plot builds steadily and throws some clever twists along the way. Some I guessed but others were a good surprise. The story is well written and keeps you turning pages. The ending was shocking and yet it worked with the context of the book. I think I liked Hannah the most as she seemed to be the most genuine. Thursday was a tricky one to decipher and I'm still not sure I feel about her. A good thriller.

Wow! I loved this book! I flew through it and didnt want to put it down.

The Wives tells the story of Thursday, one of three wives to Seth. When Thursday finds out the third wife is potentially being abused by Seth, Thursday finds herself on a path she doesn't want to take, one that is full of secrets, and can have a potentially devastating effect on the relationship she has with the man she loves.
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But is it really what it seems?
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I cant say another thing or I will spoil it! Its fab, it had me invested in the characters, despite their flaws, and I loved how the book had you thinking you know what's happening and then it blindsided you into a massive twist.
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Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for a copy if this ARC

On their fourth date Seth drops a bombshell, his father had multiple simultaneous marriages, he himself is already married but as his wife doesn't want children he's hoping to meet someone new and start a plural marriage.

At the start of the book we meet Thursday, her husband Seth has two other wives she knows as Monday and Tuesday. While Thursday isn't particularly thrilled by sharing Seth but she reassured by both the anonymity and distance she has from the other wives and that she is Seth's legal wife (he divorced his first wife to marry her). Thursday is our main character's actual name and that did confuse me first, I assumed she referred to herself as Thursday because Seth arrives to spend his two days with her on a Thursday, apparently not as her parents also call her that.

Things start to get complicated when Monday falls pregnant and Thursday comes across a medial receipt for Hannah, she can't resist her curiosity and heads straight to social media determined to find out more about the woman she shares her husband with but as Thursday digs deeper into Seth's other lives she starts to question the man she's married to.

This book was an absolute rollercoaster with so many twists and turns, what really kept me reading was trying to work out who was being genuine! As unreliable character's go this book has plenty, its difficult to say exactly why without spoilers but this hooked me like I didn't expect. This is my first Tarryn Fisher reads and looking at other reviews she seems to an author people keep going back to so I'd be interesting in trying out some of her other books.